Page:Norse mythology or, the religion of our forefathers, containing all the myths of the Eddas, systematized and interpreted with an introduction, vocabulary and index.djvu/320

 Then Geirrod invited Thor into the hall to see games. Large fires burned along the hall, and when Thor had come opposite to Geirrod the latter took with a pair of tongs a red-hot iron wedge and threw it after Thor; he seized it with the iron gloves and lifted it up into the air, but Geirrod ran behind an iron post to defend himself. Thor threw the wedge, which struck through the post and through Geirrod and through the wall, so that it went outside and into the ground.

Geirrod is the intense heat which produces violent thunderstorms, and hence his daughter the violent torrent. Of course Loke (fire) is locked up and starved through the hottest part of the summer; but this myth needs no explanation, and we proceed to the next.

SECTION IV. THOR AND SKRYMER.

One day the god Thor, accompanied by Loke, set out on a journey in his car drawn by his goats. Night coming on, they put up at a peasant's cottage, when Thor killed his goats, and, after flaying them, put them in a kettle. When the flesh was boiled he sat down with his fellow-traveler to supper, and invited the peasant and his wife and their children to partake of the repast. The peasant's son was named Thjalfe and his daughter Roskva. Thor bade them throw all the bones into the goats' skins, which were spread out near the fireplace, but young Thjalfe broke one of the shank-bones to come at the marrow. Thor having passed the night in the cottage, rose at the dawn of day, and when he had dressed himself he took his hammer, Mjolner, and, lifting it up, consecrated the goats' skins, which he had no sooner done than the two goats reassumed their wonted form, with the exception that one of them limped on one of its hind legs. Thor, perceiving this,